Under rafters, under years
I sleep in dust and cedar air
Spine bowed like a quiet moon
Waiting for a hand to dare

I was born in careful lines
Pressed from night into a name
Held together by a thread
That learned to live beside the flame
When footsteps creak above the beams
I listen like a held-back choir
Because the smallest sound can mean
A candle, or a coming fire

They think they choose me from the shelf
A relic, dull, a thing of else
But I have watched their shadows reach
And felt the tremor in their speech

I don’t move a single mark
Yet I rearrange the dark
Every gaze becomes a door
And I step through it first
One finds battles in my ribs
One finds constellations lit
Same old sentences, new bruise
New mercy, new hurt
Hearts are keys that turn my lock
Soft as rain, sharp as rock
And what I am becomes what you can hold
When you unfold

I’ve worn the fingerprints of fear
I’ve tasted ash without a tongue
Once I heard a match get struck
And thought my long long breath was done
Once I rode a sudden storm
In someone’s coat against their chest
Water seeped through every page
Like mercy learning how to dress

I keep my letters still and plain
Like stones that do not mind the rain
But people read with different eyes
And every reading rewrites time

I don’t move a single mark
Yet I rearrange the dark
Every gaze becomes a door
And I step through it first
One finds battles in my ribs
One finds constellations lit
Same old sentences, new bruise
New mercy, new hurt
Hearts are keys that turn my lock
Soft as rain, sharp as rock
And what I am becomes what you can hold
When you unfold

I am not holy, not a cure
I am a mirror made of words
A pocket universe of ink
That learns the shape of who it serves
Steel can win a single hour
But stories win the after-years
They bloom beneath a closed-down roof
And speak in voices made of tears
So hide me, bind me, call me dangerous
You won’t erase what I can do
A page can live past any blade
And still draw blood, quietly, in you

Turn me gently, if you’re brave
I’m not a grave, I’m not a cage
I’m only proof that what we feel
Can change the weight of any page

I don’t move a single mark
Yet I rearrange the dark
Every gaze becomes a door
And I step through it first
One finds battles in my ribs
One finds constellations lit
Same old sentences, new bruise
New mercy, new hurt
Hearts are keys that turn my lock
Soft as rain, sharp as rock
And what I am becomes what you can hold
When you unfold

A story outlives sword and flame
And leaves its cut without a name

Back to dust, back to beams
Still breathing in the in-between
Close the cover, dim the light
I’ll be here, reading you at night